


Ajisai

by Selah



Series: Gensou [9]
Category: Gackt (Musician) - Fandom, L'Arc~en~Ciel
Genre: Corporal Punishment, Light BDSM, M/M, Master/Pet, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:10:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selah/pseuds/Selah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say pride goeth before the fall. Hyde hates December for so many reasons, but after such a long year, he's even more disgruntled than usual. Not that he expects his Master to even notice, let alone do anything to make things better. Why would he, after all....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ajisai

**Author's Note:**

> Based on RP characterizations, set in early December 2011. Written for the February challenge at jrockyaoi@LJ. Marked mature for nudity and Master/pet dynamics, but there's no sex in this. In _hanakotoba_ , the _ajisai_ (hydrangea) is the flower of pride.

“I swear to fuck, if you don't make him stop right now, Tetsuya, I'm going to punch him in the fucking face.”

Hyde stopped his pacing to turn and glower at Ken but before he could even open his mouth, Tetsu was moving between them, tugging on his sleeve to direct him to the far side of the green room. Tetsu the peacemaker, as always.

“Look, Doiha, I know you've been under a lot of strain lately, being in two active bands at once, but....”

“But what?” he snapped at him, scowling. He knew that tone and he wasn't going to be talked down to like some little kid by his best friend. As long as the two had been friends, he probably shouldn't have been shocked when Tetsu slapped him. Hard.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” he squawked, rubbing his cheek. Sure, they were only doing a radio show, but that wasn't the point. He could feel the burning in his cheek that meant Tetsu had hit him hard enough to leave a red mark that wasn't going to just vanish in the next ten minutes.

“Sometimes slapping you is the only way to get you to fucking listen to me,” Tetsu grumbled, fishing a face mask out of his pocket and shoving it at him. “Put that on, you'll be fine.”

“If you want me to listen, you have to fucking say something first,” he muttered as he donned the mask, squawking again when Tetsu swatted him on the back of the head. “Ogawa! What the fuck? I'm not your punching bag, goddammit!”

“Then stop saying such ridiculous things. And stop pacing like some caged beast. It's unsettling and pointless, time isn't going to pass any faster for it. You aren't going to get sent home early for irritating the crap out of all of us, so just quit it already.”

Hyde would have liked nothing better than to have argued the point, but a staffer was already trying to move them from the green room to the radio studio. He would just have to deal with Tetsu's crap later.

~*~*~

“Well you're certainly in a mood tonight....”

“Shut up,” Hyde muttered, closing the fridge door a little harder than intended. He liked Sugizo well enough most days, but like You, the archangel was Gackt's soulmate and nothing to do with him. And Hyde knew it. Sugizo had been an intimate part of Gackt's life before Hyde had ever been around and he would continue to be there long after Hyde was gone. Whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, he knew his place in the constellation of Gackt's family; he had always been the outsider, would always be the outsider, no matter what anyone else said. The dirty little half-breed that Gackt kept to piss off his father's Court. 

“Dinner's in an hour.”

“I'm not hungry,” he muttered, pushing past the angel to head for his room instead. On the long list of things he didn't want to do tonight, dealing with Sugizo's angelic need to fix things ranked pretty high up the list. And only slightly below watching Gackt wooing You yet again, sucking up to him to make up for ... something. He didn't know and didn't want to know, particularly when he was pretty sure whatever it was would just piss him off even more. 

He should have moved back to his condo at the start of the year, like he had wanted, then he wouldn't have to be dealing with this shit. With meddling angels and a rival who took great pleasure in rubbing his own successes in Hyde's face. Because obviously, after an entire year of busting his ass working crazy hours for the L'Anniversary series of events, it was completely ridiculous to think he could come home and expect to be shown any special treatment or even just normal affection from Gackt.

The knock on the door was probably meant to be polite, but considering the door popped open immediately after....

“Hyde?”

Precisely who he both did and didn't want to see right then. The Fates took entirely too much pleasure in his pain. It hurt to ignore the pleading note in the tenshi's voice, but he couldn't do it, he couldn't take another night pretending to be fine at dinner when all he really wanted was to tear that smirk off You's face with his bare hands.

“Sugi-chan said you weren't feeling well. Are you sure beer's such a good idea, kitten?”

Dammit, why couldn't the man just leave? For that matter, why couldn't _he_?

“What are you even doing here?” he grouched, yanking off his shirt with more force than necessary and growling when he got stuck with it halfway off.

“Sugi-chan said you weren't feeling well,” Gackt repeated, his voice softer now in deference to how close he suddenly was. Hyde felt his spine stiffen as those hands helped him out of his shirt. His breath caught as warm palms smoothed over his shoulders a moment, then those knowing hands started massaging tense muscles. He tried to hang on to his anger, to stay stiff and unyielding, but it was a losing battle. One he had lost even before those hands had landed on his skin. No matter how hard he tried to fight against it, Gackt could always find the way past his defenses. It was completely maddening.

“Talk to me, kitten,” Gackt murmured, hands sliding from his shoulders down his arms. Hyde knew where that was headed, forcing himself to step away before the tenshi could trap him in his arms and undermine his anger even further.

“Leave me alone,” he grumbled, stomping his way into his personal bath without one look back at the tenshi he had called Master for decades, centuries even. He was having a hard enough time standing firm as it was, if he had to see that man's face, it would all come apart, he was certain of it.

In hindsight, he really should have known, after four centuries, that Gackt wasn't going to let things go so easily. Should have expected the way he was grabbed and pinned to the wall, his head forced up so he couldn't avoid Gackt so easily.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn't take you over my knee and spank you,” Gackt growled.

“We can start with I haven't actually done anything wrong yet,” Hyde snapped back, though he didn't make any move to free himself. Gackt's moods could be every bit as volatile as his own and he really wasn't interested in setting off that temper tonight.

“No? You've been a little ball of pissed off for weeks, or did you think I wasn't going to notice?” Gackt countered.

“Funny, I didn't think you were capable of noticing anything that wasn't work or the needs of your dick,” Hyde muttered, tugging his chin free. “And since I'm clearly not necessary for either....”

That had been a mistake, a push too far. A dark growl and a snap of his fingers and Hyde found himself naked and bent over Gackt's lap. One hand fisted in his hair and the next moment the other landed hard on his ass. The spanking was coldly brutal, the repeated crack of Gackt's hand on his flesh and his own harsh panting the only sounds at first. He had told himself he wouldn't cry out, no matter how Gackt punished him, but as the spanking continued, he couldn't control it. And he hated it, hated the weakness of tears running down his cheeks.

As abruptly as it had started, it was over, Gackt pushing him off his lap with a low snort.

“Go wash up, you're filthy,” the tenshi rumbled. “Ten minutes.”

It was tempting to slink off into some dark corner, to find some secret small place and stay there for the rest of the night, and for a moment, as he slipped into his shower, he seriously considered it. But only for a moment. Even if he believed for one moment (which he didn't) that Gackt wasn't waiting just outside his bathroom door, there was nowhere in the house, nowhere in the city, nowhere in the _universe_ he could hide that Gackt wouldn't find him eventually. He had already pushed too far once tonight, Hyde didn't for one second believe he would get away with running away now. He was angry, not stupid.

Which didn't stop him from using every last second of his ten minutes to hide in his bathroom, finally shrugging into loose jeans and a black tank top, then bundling himself in an old hoodie for added comfort, because he wasn't masochistic enough to try going to dinner naked, no matter how irritated he was.

He had been expecting Gackt to be waiting for him, perhaps perched on the foot of the bed, perhaps in his reading chair, perhaps even standing just outside his bathroom door. He had been expecting a cross look for his stalling, perhaps some sharp words for taking so long, accusing him of behaving like a petulant child. A part of him had even been expecting - or maybe just foolishly hoping - to be told he was being sent to bed without dinner to further think about his behavior. He most certainly had _not_  been expecting the sight that actually awaited him.

For one thing, his room, which had been steadily devolving into a sort of barely controlled chaos thanks to his work schedule, was completely clean. The bed was made, his two current top favorite plushies nested between the pillows at the headboard. The random articles of clothing that had never made it into the laundry had vanished, probably tossed into the hamper in his closet. Weeks of mail, paperwork, and other random detritus had been ordered and put back where they belonged with a surety that could only have been Gackt's doing.

But more than that, the side table he used for everything from design work to late night meals alone had been pulled away from the wall, a tablecloth and fine dinnerware set atop it in an elegant dinner for two. A cautious sniff told him the covered plates held perfectly grilled steaks that couldn't possibly have been the dinner Sugizo had mentioned to him an hour earlier. Thick, American-style prime rib steaks with potatoes au gratin, breaded asparagus, a Mediterranean-style chopped salad, and glasses of slightly chilled Cabernet Sauvignon. A dinner spread that suggested care and planning that simply weren't possible. Not even the mighty Gackt-sama could have pulled something like this out of his ass in only ten minutes, and yet.... His mouth opened, but no words came out. 

Gackt quirked an eyebrow at him from where he was already sitting at the table and Hyde practically scrambled to take the other seat. A deeper inhale had his mouth watering, though he really didn't know where to start. He should probably say something, _wanted_ to say something, but the only word that seemed willing to pass his lips was a soft, almost reverent 'itadakimasu' as he set his napkin on his lap. So many things crowded around his head, most of them some form of why. Why had Gackt cleaned his room? Why had he gone out of his way for a special dinner? _How_ had he managed this dinner? Why wasn't he still being punished? Why was Gackt sitting there just watching him struggle not to tear into the steak like a starving animal? Why wasn't he saying anything? Why couldn't _h_ e manage to say anything? Hyde tried to focus just on the meal, but the nagging doubts wouldn't leave him alone. Was this all a set-up? But if it was, what was it setting up? The unknowns were starting to make his head hurt and not even the wine was helping.

“You know,” he said after another sip of wine that didn't actually help his headache at all, “if you're going to ask me to move out, this buttering up approach wasn't necessary. Really kind of a waste, in fact.”

The muted clatter of silverware on the table was barely worthy of notice and Hyde had all but ignored it until he felt the hand closing around his throat, forcing his head up. Anger flashed in the tenshi's eyes for a moment, swiftly followed by a deep sadness. The hand at his throat shifted, Gackt mumbling something that Hyde didn't register in time to stop. The magic took him and between one breath and the next he was once again a cat being cradled against Gackt's chest. He tried to wriggle and fight his way free, but those arms knew him too well, held him too close. He yeowled in distress and yet Gackt didn't let go, white wings bursting forth to wrap around them both. He thrashed and flailed, hissed and clawed, and yet he couldn't escape, neither from the physical embrace nor the magic that surrounded him, that insisted on pulling the fight and anger and hurt out of him. That stupid glow that coiled all about them both, the warmth of affection that stubbornly refused to be denied.

“I love you, Kitten, why would I ever send you away?”

“Love me so much you barely even notice me for weeks, months on end?” he spat, struggling to free even just one paw. If he could just get the right leverage ... but he could feel Gackt's magic working against him, trying to leech out his anger.

“Kitten....”

“How long am I just supposed to accept being less than second best? How much more am supposed to wait? Until he dies again and you have no choice but to come back to me?” he demanded as he tried another tactic of wiggling free. It still didn't work and he hated the noise that escaped him at his repeated failures. Forcing him into his feline form like this, it was cheating and Gackt knew it, but of course there was nothing Hyde could do. He couldn't even change himself back to human form until he found a way to escape the tenshi's arms, the spell Gackt had cast wouldn't allow it.

“Forgive me, love, for not seeing sooner how much I had hurt you,” Gackt whispered, holding him close to his chest. “It was not my intention to hurt you, Kitten. He needed me.”

“And of course the needs of your soulmate are more important than those of your secret whore,” he snarled, his hurt, his anger too deep for even Gackt's magic to soothe away so easily.

“Such things you say,” Gackt scolded, pressing a kiss to his forehead before finally sitting down. Like this he should have been able to wiggle himself free and yet the magic net, like the closed wings and Gackt's arms, held tight around him. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't seem to do that, either. 

“What, the truth?” he grumbled, petulant words seemingly all that was left to him.

“I wouldn't stand for anyone else calling you a whore, what makes you think I'll let you do it?”

“Funny, your fucking soulmate's been doing it for years now, you haven't stopped _him_ ,” he grumbled, ears flattening at the hand that tried to pet him.

“And you've called him the same or worse just as often, Kitten. Nothing I do seems to stop either of you for very long.”

Hyde grumbled and tried to scrunch himself into a ball too small for Gackt to pet properly. He didn't want to be petted, petting was doom, he knew what would happen if he gave in and let himself be petted. Feline instincts would take over until he was purring and once that happened, his anger, his only shield against the pain, would be completely lost to him. He didn't want to face that pain, not now, not in his feline form, where everything felt more immediate. And not in front of Gackt, never in front of his Master, who would blame himself and tie himself in knots trying to make it better without having to actually give up or change anything. Or worse, decide Hyde was too broken, too damaged to be worth keeping any longer.

Somehow or another Gackt managed to wrestle him onto his back, Hyde's spine cradled along one arm while his other hand rubbed at his belly. Hyde twitched as he tried to free himself from the magic, but his own refused to work against the contract he had signed, the will of his Master so plainly made manifest. Steady glowing warmth flowed through him, pulling the anger away until there was nothing left but the raw pain and defeat.

“I love you, Hyde,” Gackt whispered, rubbing his cheek on the top of his head. “I have loved you for four centuries now and that love will never waver, never fade. You have my word.”

Hyde swallowed around the heavy lump in his throat, pressing himself tight to Gackt's chest to take deep breaths heavily laden with the tenshi's scent. He didn't really believe it, not the part about Gackt's love never wavering anyway, but for now he would take it.


End file.
